Baking Christmas Pie

My cousin Michael send me the most marvelous Christmas card. The picture is of my grandmother, Blanche making pies in her kitchen at 29 St. Peter Street in Salem, Mass.

My grandmother baked a fabulous apple pie! My grandfather loved music and there are his records on top of what looks like my grandmother's sewing machine. I remember the kitchen chairs and the flowered canister set.

You can see the canisters again in one of the photos from this post written earlier about the wonderful house and how it was saved from the wrecking ball. And I also should mention that the baby in the photo at the bottom of the earlier post turns out to be me. My cousin Kathy, standing to the right of the high chair, told me so.

Thanks, Michael, for sending such a thoughtful holiday gift full of wonderful memories!

"World of Girls" Dot

For Good Little Boys and Girls

Here's a santa from a lovely old alphabet book as a substitute for a holiday postcard for this weeks Postcard Friendship Friday!

Faneuil Hall, Boston

Here's an oversized view of Faneuil Hall in Boston, a "Lusterchrome" Giant Post Card. The back reads:

Affectionately called "The Cradle of Liberty", Faneuil Hall was the focus of Revolutionary movement in Boston and the colonies. It was built in 1742 by Peter Faneuil and given to Boston as a Town Hall.

Happy Postcard Friendship Friday to everyone!

The Inland Printer, Etc.

I was excited to see a nice selection of covers from The Inland Printer on MagazineArt.org. The Inland Printer was the first magazine in America to change its cover with every issue and, in association with designer Will Bradley beginning in 1894, it was influential in popularizing Art Nouveau.

Another cool site I found through MagazineArt.org is a blog about chromolithography. Some beautiful examples can be found there. And one more interesting blog is the Antique Prints Blog written by the owner of the Philadelphia Print Shop.

Scientific American

With my love of old scientific apparatus, I was excited to find a couple of sites showing pages from 19th century issues of Scientific American: A Weekly Publication of Information, Art, Science, Mechanics, Chemistry and Manufacturers. The first Scientific American was issued August 28, 1845.

One of the sites is MagazineArt.org (vintage magazine cover and advertising art from the golden age of American illustration), and if my link works it should take you to an amazing illustration of an early machine gun cleverly mounted to the back of a camel from the first page of the March 2, 1872 issue.

The second site is called Scientific American Past. Issues date from 1870 to 1931 with a few gaps. There you can read the history of Scientific American extracted from the five volume A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott. There is a .99 cent per image fee for high resolution printable image files and articles.

Book Collector's Terminology

I just discovered Traditions & Culture of Collecting: A Course in Correct Cataloging, or Notes to the Neophyte and A Second Course in Correct Cataloging on Jeremy Norman's site about the history of science, medicine and technology:

These two humorous handbooks or glossaries of terms for antiquarian booksellers, originally written and published in 1958 and 1962 by San Francisco antiquarian bookseller David Magee, should still evoke howls of delight from any dealer, collector or librarian familiar with the day-to-day problems of the book trade.

The illustrations above are from my oldest book find. All but pages 145-376 are missing. The edges are extremely worn. Or, I should say: “show extreme evidence of great devotional love by former owner.” Some of the words have "f" in place of "s" as in the word "fin" [for sin] and the first word of the next page appears at the bottom of the one previous. The sermons are dated 1688-1691.

Manners & Customs of the Bible

I found a 1972 reprint of James Midwinter Freeman's 1875 Handbook of Bible Manners and Customs. The illustrated text is subtitled: A Complete Guide to the Origin and Significance of our Time-Honored Biblical Tradition. It is well indexed, illustrated with lovely engravings, and includes a three page list of authoritative 19th century sources for further study.

Natural Philosophy 1865

The preface reads:

The importance of the physical sciences is now so generally admitted that there are few institutions of learning in which they are not made regular branches of study. And very properly,-- for what can be more interesting and instructive, what more worthy of the attention of intelligent creatures, what more calculated to inspire their minds with a thirst for further knowledge, and fill their hearts with reverent gratitude to the Divine Being, than an acquaintance with the laws of the material world, the mysterious influences constantly at work in nature, and the principles by which atoms and worlds alike are controlled?

A number of engravings have been furnished by Benjamin Pike, jr., of 294 Broadway, New York, and are not mere fancy-sketches, but actual representations of instruments (the best and most modern of their kind) manufactured at his establishment. Mr. Pike's life has been devoted to this branch of industry. . .

Back in 1865 every-day life was simpler and physics was known as Natural Philosophy. This fragment was tucked inside the book; a publishers' flier or perhaps part of the original book jacket.

Glimpses of the Heavenly Life

A lovely dump rescue with a holiday theme.

Boston Burial Grounds (Old Home Week)

These are for Vintage Postcards Revisited because she loves old cemeteries.

Old Boston Post Cards

I love these post cards of old Boston. I spent a lot of time there in the 80's making research runs. I would land at North Station via the commuter train and walk to the State House Library.

Next stop was usually the Boston Public Library's Government Documents room via the Green Line. Then I would hop on the Red Line to visit the Engineering Library and the Science Library at MIT.

On the return trip I liked to stop at Fanueil Hall Marketplace to buy postcards for my collection if I had time to kill before catching my train.

Commonwealth Ave. was lovely back in the days of the horse-drawn carriage. Wishing everyone a great Postcard Friendship Friday!

The Swan Boats, Boston (Old Home Week)

The Public Gardens and the Swan Boats are such favorites of mine. I think I've ridden perhaps twice in my life but it is nice to think that such an old (since 1877) tradition is still alive!

Current fares are: adults - $2.75; children - $1.50; seniors - $2.00. Sounds like a bargain to me. Visit this site to read about the history of the Swan Boats of Boston.

Trinity Church, Boston (Old Home Week)

The State House, Boston (Old Home Week)

Old State House, Boston (Old Home Week)

More from Old Home Week

Look out! When you hit "return" at the end of a title it publishes your post automatically.

Getting ready to scan a few old photos of Boston as a lead-in to some postcards coming tomorrow for PFF. I blogged about Old Home Week before. The book was written by James Ball Naylor and was published by the C.M. Clark Publishing Company of Boston in 1907.

But first I want to mention THIS Old Home photograph. The caption reads: "Old Chain Bridge, Newburyport, Massachusetts - First Suspension Bridge in America."

I hate to think how many times I drove over the new bridge in Newburyport unaware of this bit of history regarding the old one.

Pennies From Heaven

Well, I might be cross-country skiing out back sooner than I thought. It's a great day to be closed with a wood stove to stay warm by.

I just added a new page to my collage website to feature the digital variety. Hope you enjoy my latest, Pennies From Heaven, inspired by the old song book in Monday's post.

Laying Up Treasures in Heaven

From a song book rescued from the paper dumpster.

Follow Instructions ?

This is a 15-year old xerox of my daughter's jacket tag. Believe me when I say that I'm not much interested in housekeeping standards so it's a miracle that I even noticed it. Remember this, Marianne?

X-Country Skiing

I've been blogging my brains out today as a result of closet-cleaning in search of some photo machine pictures posted here. This is the last of my old scrapbook clippings from the Salem News.

I still have the skis, boots and poles that I am wearing in the photo. I wish I still had those red, white and blue argyle knee socks!

First Significant Snow

We got a little snow yesterday, as you can see, but not quite enough yet to cover the meadow for cross-country skiing. And it will be a while before that channel freezes over. The roads were pretty icy last night, so bad that a car skidded into an electrical pole in front of the house next door. Broke the pole right off, from what I understand. I both heard and felt the crash, looked out the kitchen window (no street lights in this part of town, and no moon so it was DARK!) and saw headlights shining into the woods. I called 911.

For the next few hours there was all manner of activity involving public service, and this morning when I looked in the daylight I noticed a second pole was added. (The barn was not damaged in the accident, its roof fell in over a year ago.) A friend informed me that a police cruiser was involved in the accident so today I had a story to tell my bead customers about calling the cops on the cops!